h.i.e.p. karma

Mood: Um... hungry

Well, actually yesterday was my birthday but I was too busy to post in my blog. Since you know, my blog's been a well of activity lately! *sarcasm*

Turned 37. Woop-tee-doo. So for my birthday I bought myself a nice new Mac mini - the lowest model: 1gb ram, 120gb hard drive. The mini will be replacing my current server, a 3+ year old 2.6ghz P4 Windows machine. It's still using AGP graphics - that's how old it is. I will be upgrading the ram to 4gb and the hard drive to hopefully something bigger (I have a few 2.5" laptop drives lying around that I think are bigger than 120gb). It will be nice to finally get rid of the old server. It was loud and hot.

I actually had a very nice birthday yesterday. It's nice having people recognize you're getting one year closer to death! I had a very nice dinner! Sea bass and Caesar salad. Yumm @ Vito.

Geek moments:
Last night I got my alts to level 60! A prot paladin and a beast mastery hunter. In about 2.5 weeks. You can thank Blizzard's Refer-A-Friend program for that. It's very very nice.

Mood: Yay?

Happy New Year everyone! I know I haven't been updating my blog in a loooong time. My excuse: work and WoW. Lots and lots of WoW. I have a level 80 Death Knight now. Hehe.

So what did I do when the bell rung 12? Playing WoW. (In particular, leveling up mining. So painful...) Yes I have no shame...

Mood: Eh.. it's Monday, what do you expect?

I smell BBQ... except it was at 9:30am this morning... a Monday.

Oh wait just the yearly fires in the Valley.

Mood: Anxious

History. Today. Wow.

Who will be our new overlord?

Mood: Eh?

I had a pretty busy weekend... just doing stuff.

I finally learned how to tie a... tie. I figured it was about time I learned how to do this myself, even though I rarely use ties (currently that is... I plan to use ties more casually in the future). I had my dad teach me today. It wasn't that bad to learn actually. I got it down after about 10 minutes of practice. It's still not perfect but it's workable. Turns out my dad taught me how to tie a Windsor knot.

I'm getting noticeably better (and faster) at beatmatching! I'm quite excited. I think in two or three weeks I should be able to record my own DJ sets without any major embarrassing train wrecks. Up til today, I was doing pure trance tracks. This afternoon I did a set of house tracks (I just found the Freemasons... omg these guys are the shiz! These guys have a distinct disco flavor to their house tracks. I can thank Hype Machine for finding these guys). The house set went pretty well. Only one or two really bad train wrecks as I couldn't beatmatch the tracks in time. And they all matched in key... frankly because they were all Freemasons tracks! I must say... I love disco house.

Update: Some Freemason videos:

This one is a remix of a Beyonce / Shakira song "Beautiful Liar":


An original title (actually an Alanis Morrisette song) "Uninvited":


Did my usual walk to Westwood Park today and restarted my gym workout (I had been sidelined for two weeks with this cold/cough... and I still have a slight lingering cough).

I thoroughly cleaned my shower today. Frankly, it was nasty. All this grime accumulated in it and it was definitely time to clean that sucker out. Ajax + bristle brush are your friends.

I went back to Coffee Bean this weekend. I hadn't had coffee since August, when I came back from Vegas and rebooted my workout regimen. I had a drink yesterday *and* a drink today. I feel so guilty....

I bought some RiteLite LED Spotlights from Bed Bath and Beyond for my DJ rig. They were $10 a pop but with those 10,000 20% coupons they send you... about $9 after taxes. They're pretty neat and I'm going to mount one to the desk that I DJ on. As for the other spotlight I'm going to have it point to and illuminate the mini-disco ball I have. YES. I have a mini-disco ball! Don't be a hater.

Mood: Sickly.

Being sick sucks. I've had this cold/cough since Tuesday. I THINK I'm getting better but it's been really slow progress. I already took a sick day on Wednesday and I'm seriously tempted to take another sick day tomorrow. I guess I'll see how it goes when I wake up on Monday.

Grrr.

Mood: Incredulous

Yesterday I did my laundry. Exciting, I know.

I also happened to forget that I had put my iPhone earbuds in my workout shorts and promptly washed and dried them. Guess what? THEY STILL WORK!! Everything - the audio, the playback control... I'm impressed, to say the least.

Just don't try this with your earbuds.

Mood: Bemused

I got a haircut this morning. I was pretty happy with it, since I got the same hair stylist that I did the last time I was at SuperDuperHyperCuts, and she gave me an excellent haircut then. I told her I wanted the same exact thing as last time, with the exception that I wanted the top front of my hair to grow out longer.

It wasn't until I got home and looked more carefully in the mirror that I realized that I look like Simple Jack from Tropic Thunder! Ack!

No, you can't have a picture.

And yes, Tropic Thunder was hilarious.

Mood: Jammin!

You've probably seen that Target commercial by now: two young girls in a friendly dance battle redecorating their shared room. If not, here's the Youtube video (hopefully it doesn't get pulled):



Those two girls are rockin' dancers! Pretty good moves.

The catchy and fresh track is "Calabria" by Enur, feat Natasja. Sadly the singer, Natasja, passed away in a car accident in 2007.

Get the song... it's only $0.89 in Amazon.

Mood: Pumped.

I'm back from the gym and just had my longest aerobic workout (ever? Probably...). I was on the elliptical machine for an hour and "jogged" 5 miles. Not shabby. And I still have energy to spare. Definitely one of my better workout nights.

Mood: Elated!.

Ever dropped your keys? And not just drop them... like drop them down an elevator shaft?
I just did - 15 minutes ago.

I had my car keys in my left hand, and with the same hand was keeping an elevator door open for someone. As I took my hand off the door as it was closing, the keys got caught on it, fell out of my hands and right into the opening at the bottom of the elevator. Yep, right into that crevice.

It was that "oh you gotta be kidding me moment"...

I was very lucky though - the staff was very helpful and soon a nice maintenance guy came along with a 6 foot pole and a wire coat hanger. Soon enough he fished my keys out. I must say I am pretty impressed. I'm sure this wasn't the first time an idiot like me dropped his keys down the elevator shaft!

Moral of the story: Keep your keys in your pockets.

Mood: Whimsical.

It seems in the wake of the recent taxi driver killing in Thailand that's been blamed on Grand Theft Auto 4 (and causing it to be hastily removed from stores there), the Thai Ministry of Health has put out a list of their Top 10 Most Dangerous Games...

... and one of the games I worked on - 50 Cent: Bulletproof - is on that list, at #4! Haha! (I will admit though... it IS a violent game. And the killing in Thailand is a tragic incident - obviously the killer's a loon - but games shouldn't be made a scapegoat.)

Mood: Nonchalant.

Here's a picture of a sandwich I made for lunch last week... Yeah it was overkill. .



Needless to say I didn't finish it. I ate most of it though!
There were 3 slices of bread, 1-2 slices of cheese, 4 slices of some roast beef (thank you Costco), and 3 eggs cooked as an omelet. You can't tell from the picture, but the sandwich was about 3+ inches tall. Geez, thinking back on it now it was definitely overkill...

I impressed my coworkers though... In fact one of them took the above pic!

I've been trying to "eat-in" more often at work, given lunch usually will cost me $7+. That's some savings if I restrict myself to eating out 2 days a week for lunch.

Mood: Chillin'

Finally got my car cd player fixed today. My car is three years old, and about a year (!) ago it started to develop problems playing cds. It would skip, and eventually stop playing altogether - but only after the car had been driven for awhile. Weird stuff.

Now you're probably wondering: well if it was a year ago how come it took so long? Simple: I'm lazy. What finally got me around to taking it into the dealer was the fact that my warranty was just about to expire. So I took my car in a week before the warranty was up. They put in a new cd player today and so far it's working. This will be nice with my new commute, as driving through a section of the 405 gets me into a mountainous area with bad radio reception...

Mood: Entertained

Saw The Dark Knight this afternoon (finally... I didn't want to deal with the opening weekend crowds). Color me impressed - really impressed - with the movie. It's one of the darkest - if not THE darkest - and most intense comic book/superhero movies I've seen ever. The performance turned in by the late Heath Ledger is definitely deserved of all the positive reviews that had been placed on him by critics. This movie would have turned him into an A+++ list actor. It's a shame he passed away. He played such a creepy Joker.